Saturday, March 1, 2014

In The Morning I'll Be Gone

In The Morning I'll Be Gone is released in North America and on audiobook format this week. I didn't want to do another blog about me, me, me but there have been so many newspaper reviews for Duffy #3 I hope you don't mind me reposting them here (I don't have any other website). Suffice to say that In The Morning I'll Be Gone is becoming the best reviewed book of my short crime fiction career. Still America is a VERY tough nut to crack so I'd appreciate it if you could leave me a review somewhere (amazon, good reads, audible etc.) or pass a copy to your mate who just happens to be the editor of The New York Times. I'm going to keep this post up for a week or so in case a curious newbie googles my name and comes here so feel totally free - regular blog readers - not to check back for 7 or 8 days. Anyway here's those reviews, I reckon it's a book most people will enjoy, although if you are upset by sturdy Chaucerian language now considered to be profane or you don't enjoy black humour or any kind of nuance in your Irish fiction then I urge you strongly NOT to buy this book...If you're on Amazon, or Audible or Good Reads, B&N, etc. please leave me a review if you get the chance. Thank you. A locked room mystery within a manhunt killer [is] a clever and gripping set-up that helps makes Duffy's third outing easily his best so far.

The Sunday Times

Each book is a solid standalone, but it’s even better to ride the entire trilogy roller coaster with Duffy as your intimate companion.The Boston GlobeNot content with constructing a complex plot, McKinty further wraps his story around a deliciously old-fashioned locked room mystery, the solution to which holds the key to Duffy’s entire investigation. Driven by McKinty’s brand of lyrical, hard-boiled prose, leavened by a fatalistic strain of the blackest humour, In the Morning I’ll Be Gone is a hugely satisfying historical thriller.
The Irish Times

This is the third in the series and, for me, the best, for it contains a locked room mystery at the heart of a drama about a major terrorist escape from the Maze prison, Belfast in 1983. Written in spare, razor-sharp prose, and leading up to a denouement that creeps up on you and then explodes like a terrorist bomb, it places McKinty firmly in the front rank of modern crime writers.

The Daily Mail

[A] superb trilogy reaches its finality...The hunt for [Duffy's quarry] begins and ends spectacularly. McKinty is particularly convincing in painting the political and social backdrops to his plots. He deserves to be treated as one of Britain’s top crime writers.

The Times

An action movie view of the Troubles...a fast and thrilling ride from the reliably excellent McKinty.

The Mail on Sunday

It's a sad day for fans of Adrian McKinty's smart 1980s-set procedurals featuring mordantly charismatic Belfast cop Sean Duffy. Not because his latest, In the Morning I'll Be Gone is any sort of let-down, but because it concludes what has been a hugely enjoyable trilogy. In some ways, Duffy resembles Iain Banks's young male heroes – crass and impetuous, but also wickedly funny and capable of an intense, redeeming empathy.

The Guardian

An older, more sobered Duffy, still unconventional and willing to take chances, but more reflective, more Sherlock Holmes. His growing maturity result in fewer bedroom scenes but there is plenty of excitement and suspense elsewhere in this intelligent and gripping yarn.

I hope the British version will be available to me on Book Depository at some point. They are saying it's unavailable still. I wonder if the fact that they are now owned by Amazon has any responsibility for that. I'm happy to buy it, but I'd just as soon not pay shipping.

Hi AdrianThat bloggers review of The Cold Cold Ground is brilliant(I must brush up my technique) and there are also some wonderful reader comments on the Goodreads site.BTW,it might be worth your becoming a 'Goodreads Author' (not sure what that involves, but hopefully, not selling your soul) as every time an author does so, I get an announcement on my Facebook page, so it must be good publicity.Anne

Looking forward to this. just been contacted by Anne Marie at Profile regarding sending me a copy as she's seen I've reviewed you before, presumably on Mean Streets. bit out the blue & if you had anything to do with that, thanks. Eagerly awaited

Congrats, but I'm annoyed that I have to wait until March for publication here in North America. Why the different roll out dates? I'm further annoyed by your locked room mysteries article--now I have to add a linear foot to my TBR shelf. One of the best locked room puzzles I've read was in a Maigret mystery, the title of which escapes me, but it involved a man shot in a locked room which faced a courtyard in which there was a well. The window to the room was slightly open, but there was no way a killer could have left via the window without being seen. Oh, and there was no murder weapon in the room. Ring any bells?

I think the idea is this: release in the UK first, get some reviews and then add those reviews to the sheet that you send the book out with so that you can possibly get US newspapers and reviewers to take an interest in the novel. Unfortunately it hasn't reall worked that well this series. For Cold Cold Ground I got the best reviews of my entire career in the UK, Ireland and Australia and zero reviews in any of the American press. Even my friends couldn't get me a review in the papers they worked for. Because? Well I dont really know. They needed the space for all the Nordic Noir books? Celebrity authors? People peddling a more traditional view of Ireland? I just don't know.

This may be related or not but I wasnt surprised to see that BJ Novak (an actor from The Office) had his collection of short stories reviewed on the front page of The New York Times yesterday.

The reader can be misdirected but not deliberatley misled (or I as prefer to call it lied to). Larsson lied to the readers by

SPOILER ALERT

putting forth the crackpot notion that a dead girl who wasnt really dead wd choose to communicate with her beloved grandparent by sending him a flower every year on her birthday - instead of sending him a postcard or phoning or something. At the end of the book she was surprised that he had misinterpreted this flower gift for 30 years. I mean, Jesus.

I also think its important that the reader gets all the information that the detective has so he or she can figure it out with him or her. This is something that the BBC's Sherlock doesnt do for example (not that anyone cares).

In mine I made damn sure to explain that the doors were locked AND bolted from the inside and there were no secret tunnels or way in through the roof, windows, etc. etc. I dont like magicians tricks, certainly not one that arent available to the general reader. And dont get me started on supernatural solutions....

You are quite a good writer, Mr. McKinty. I have read several of your books and am very impressed. I look forward to reading 'In the morning I'll be gone'It is refreshing to see complex literate fiction masquerading as who-dun-it. You do the world a great service.

Pretty sure thats a glitch which makes the US publisher furious. Its an ill wind though...because it means I can get some early reviews up on US amazon before the glitch gets fixed. So not exactly a win win but not a huge disaster either.

Added Declan Burke's review in The Irish Times and the review from The Sun (my first review in The Sun I believe). There's also a review in The Times today by Marcel Berlins but it is pay walled so I can't add that.

Youd think with a set of reviews like this I'd be a shoo in to get reviews (not good reviews just reviews) in the US press too...well youd think wrong.

I wouldn't actually think that, because despite the fact that we all speak a common language, and despite the global aspect of the internet, the U.S market seems to be on a different plane than any other market, and that includes, inexplicably, Canada.

A different plane or a different wavelength or something. I just dont get it. Maybe years ago I offended someone at a party in New York and he or she issued an "you'll never eat lunch in this town again" style directive.

Here you go, from The Times:The last of the Sean Duffy trilogy, In the Morning I’ll be Gone, starts with our hero, wrongly accused of misconduct, forced to resign from the Royal Ulster Constabulary. It’s 1984, sectarian violence is still rife in the province, and IRA terrorists have escaped from the Maze prison. One of them is Dermot McCann, whom MI5 is especially anxious to recapture. They arrange for Duffy to be reinstated in the force, on the grounds that he was once a close friend of the fugitive and might be able to trace him. His efforts meet with unanimous hostility, but he’s sidetracked into looking into Dermot’s sister-in-law’s suspicious death in a locked room in a pub. The hunt for Dermot continues and ends spectacularly. McKinty is particularly convincing in painting the political and social backdrops to his plots. He deserves to be treated as one of Britain’s top crime writers.

The previous review in today's crime roundup, for a Malcolm MacKay novel, starts: "Two superb trilogies reach finality" which is a reference to MacKay's book "The Sudden Arrival of Violence" and the following review for In The Morning I'll Be Gone.

I'm still plodding through some unfinished books before downloading In the Morning ...

Don't know what else they can do apart from "pay per issue" . They're still losing money, as are the Guardian and Independent. Daily Mail seems to be about the only UK paper really successfully making the transition, and you can see how they do it. Celebrity clickbait.

Which made me think .. and sure enough:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-2349973/Gone-Girl-Life-After-Life-The-best-books-holiday.html

The Guardian loses money but it brings in massive amounts of revenue so somethings definitely not right there.

The Times I think shot itself by a too harsh paywall. The New York Times still - barely - makes a profit and they have a more fluid paywall. That might have been the model to follow rather than the more specialist WSJ paywall.

The Guardian seems to be funded by AutoTrader as well as George Soros & co. The Independent was funded by some oligarch last I heard. All baffling to me. I've managed in business for many years with an understanding of economics that extends about as far as the Micawber Principle.

Stuart MacBride was in the paper here recently as he was selling his house which got me thinking about authors and their income. It's none of my business, but out of small-town nosiness I'd say he lived modestly well for an internationally successful author with no kids who had a decent full-time job before going full-time as a writer. I'd guess his wife would have been very supportive.

I've been informed that its more about lag times than garnerning reviews. The US publishing world is just a much bigger industry that it takes longer to get the mighty ship moving and turned around than in the UK were you can literally copyedit a book 6 weeks prior to publication! Cant get away with that in the N American market!

Hi I am Simpi Singh. I have my own boutique chain in delhi and noida. So I need a office space in noida for dealhing and client meeting purpose. I search many office space, but I couldn’t find best one which is suitable for my business. Then I contact Your Office Space and he provide me a best and suitable Serviced Office Space in Noida.

Damn. Should never have gone over to Amazon. Some fuckwit just left me a two star review saying that the opening chapter was boring and that I had no idea how to begin a mystery novel! Jesus mate this is my 10th mystery novel, trust me son, I know exactly what I'm fucking doing.

He began his review with the mention of "British tyranny" opressing his people (of course he's an Irish American) so I should have figured that an axe was starting to get ground...

But really he didnt find the opening chapter interesting? or funny? He didnt like any of the jokes...

And now my rating is way down. Jesus Christ. Blood pressure through the roof. Note to self: Never read comment threads sober. Never read reviews sober...

Adrian, you more than most should know that Irish American politics are going to come into play when it comes to a book set in early 1980s Ireland. So you do have to factor all that out. Your fans are going to get the stars back on track, but when I tried to post my review on the American site I was told that the book wasn't available to review here yet. That despite the fact there are already seven or so reviews up. Apparently those came through something called Amazon Vine, but maybe Joe V knows more than I do about that.

No you're right too. I'll try and keep a cool head. I did look up the kid's other reviews and this is way out of his ballpark. So why review a book that isnt your cup of tea, i.e. crime fiction, and pretend to be an expert on it?

If I ever do another Duffy I am definitely going to do that "audaciously boring" thing now. A full page of meaningless static will definitely get rid of the casual reader early!

The "Vine Program" - Amazon sends me a list of soon to be released stuff from which I can select some number of products if I submit a review within some specified time. (This imposed "deadline" for the reviews is a recent addition to the program and is causing some consternation among the Amazonians.)

I have no idea how/why I was "chosen" - beyond the simple fact that I buy a shitload of books - which does make some sense.

In The Morning... was/is on the recent list.

I believe I've left this before jvelisek@att.net. Send me a note if you're really curious and I'll forward you what Vine info I have.

Adrian,I was greated with Seana's experience .At least I could review you book on Amazon U.K.The curiouspart of this staggered U.S./U.K. publication release dates is that to get a book quickly delivered from the UK one has to resort to Ebay.It seems your British/Irish collusion scenarios appear as usual to be all to true in that today it appears the Brits colluded with a former Irish government in sending letters which promised immunity to I.R.A. gunmen on the run to secure the peace agreement re: N.I. Best Alan

Adrian.It appears that The Irish government claims no knowledge of these immunity letters which were worked out with the Sinn Fein without the knowledge of the Bertie Ahern goverment in Eire.Oh what a tangled web we weave...Best Alan

If I'd written that an accused IRA man takes a letter out of their pocket in court signed by the Prime Minister that gets them out of jail free everyone would have laughed at me. Yet thats what happened yesterday!

Well, Serpents Tail still has it in print, and why couldn't Seventh Street do both of them here? And I see that even on American Amazon, it's managed to keep in the five star range, so that's not exactly failure in most people's books.

Oh no the reviews both online and in print were great but I think it only sold a couple of hundred copies on both sides of the Atlantic which couldnt even justify a reprint never mind a sequel. Alas. Cos I loved Killian.

"Irish American politics are going to come into play when it comes to a book set in early 1980s Ireland."I can't help thinking that that's what lies behind the NYT dame's bee in bonnet.

Then there was the character on Amazon claiming to be from Carrickfergus who found it incredible that a Catholic would be in the RUC in early 1980s. A friend from over there had her brother assassinated for that very reason back then and you only have to Google the rest of them - uncommon yes, but certainly not unknown.

Now I'm feeling guilty for not putting reviews up on Amazon. And I only put a 4-star up when I did, just because I'm not a 5-star kind of guy.

Falling Glass was on sale in the local airport - that was my introduction to McKinty and led to the rest. I'm shocked to find there were so few sold.

Obviously I don't understand the publishing game.

But my thoughts were that good books don't date and a sequel to a poor-selling book could create "back-demand" for previous in the series. It's a lot of time and effort on a gamble though.

That guy drove me mental. He said that you couldnt hear bombs going off in Belfast from Carrickfergus which in fact in 1981 when I lived at 113 Coronation Road (Sean Duffy's house) in Carrickfergus I used to hear bombs going off ALL THE TIME from my bedroom.

And yup he said there were NO Catholic policemen in the RUC when in fact there were at least 1000 Catholic RUC (although fewer detectives admittedly) - my brother's best friend was a Catholic RUC officer with some amazing stories (he ended getting handcuffed to Michael Stone at one point).

I know I shouldnt get worked up by the haters but I just cant help it especially when they're talking utter and complete bollocks.

Adrian,If good wishes and high regard could translate into sales all of us who regularly follow your works and amazing blog would be the first to cheer. Indeed we would be reading about that newly wealthy and acclaimed unique Celtic/OZ Noir writer in the NYT Book Review section.Life is a bit longer than tomorrow and Falling Glass was a corker.The March 1 Independent UK had one heck of an article on double agents in Britain during WW Two.After the release letters from the British government this article adds more James Bond to the mix.Best Alan

Great reviews Adrian - am looking forward to reading it. As for the fuckwit reviewers on Amazon - I don t think it's just your books, there always seem to be the sound of axes grinding with a few of the poor reviews for other books. But that guy who claimed to be from Carrickfergus... What an arse.

By the way, are you really surprised by the whole government letters/ pardons story?

I think its an amazing story. Obviously it makes sense in terms of Real Politik and must have been part of a secret deal done by the Blair government to get the Good Friday Agreement done.

A get out of jail free card that you dramatically reveal on the first day of your trial?...Like I say if I'd written something as crazy as this in a book my editor would have would have put big red question marks all over the ms.

I preordered the book. This year I will answer Adrian's call and write a review on Audible but given the fact I'm a horrible writer and use my real name I'm finding the task to be daunting.

I don’t want to spoil the first two novels too much because hopefully there are lots of readers out there that just heard about the series or are long time Mickinty fans waiting for the series to wrap before collecting all three stories. So without providing detail what I love about the series is that this is the first time I’ve hated the main character on a personal level while simultaneously finding him incredibly compelling. Again without spoiling anything I was very happy with Duffy’s personal arc in the second novel and hope to find him much more likable in the aftermath that going to take place in the third novel.

Also if any new readers are out there while I haven’t read the third novel the first two novels are self-contained stories. You can easily read the second book without missing a beat and I’m going to assume that’s true for the third novel as well so don't let the fact it's a series of three intimidate you from jumping right in.

Since we are talking about Falling Glass the reason why it failed might have something to do with the fact the book wasn't available in print. This was okay with me because every year the best time I have with a story is when Adrian and Doyle get together to tell a story but still there was only one option to get the story and it was a little advertised one at that.

Also, this is funny now looking back at it, but at the end of the audio novel I thought something must have happened during the recording to eliminate the ending of the story. I was actually going to import the novel so I could get the ending but then Adrian discussed it here and I realized that I listened to the ending as written.

Its not really my fault that Falling Glass never appeared in a US print edition. It was offered to every single publishing house in the US and every single one of them said no thank you, including my two previous American publishers.

Maybe if I'd come with a more mainstream ending it would have been a different story. Still, I love that ending and wouldnt change it for the world...

I have no idea if this was intentional on Adrian’s part but what so brilliant and frustrating about the ending of Falling Glass is that the book is never far from my thoughts because I will never be finished with the book. As a serious reader the only thing I can compare it to for someone not passionate about books would be watching the championship game of your favorite sport team of all time, the team you hate is up by three points but not to fear because at very last second your favorite player takes a shot at the goal worth five points and at that moment your house loses power and you don’t know what happens next. I’ve listened to the novel three or four times now and every time I get to the end a large part of me is expecting the scene to extend for thirty more seconds, that’s all I want.

Lester, I guess we shouldn't say too much about the actual ending here, but I read it as though the characters had transcended themselves and become emblems of an eternal cosmic struggle. Perhaps perfectly balanced. Who can say?

I’m guessing that’s a rhetorical question but your answer would be not for me that’s for damn sure. I know based on reader reviews that Adrian's work appeals to sophisticated intelligent cosmopolitan people who ponder the meaning of the universe in higher mathematics while waxing eloquent on the poem they loved so much that they committed to memory. Good for them. I come for the twisty plot, larger than life characters that are scary while being endless charismatic and most important someone you can meet on the street even if you wouldn't want oo, cool dialogue, violence and the humor. I can’t stress the humor enough, I don’t care how well written a novel is if there isn’t humor I’m out. With Adrian's body of work I get all this and more it's really crime fiction at it's best which is the purest form of entertainment that I can enjoy without feeling guilty later.

Lester, I'm not disagreeing with you in any way, except to say that the ending was very very clever. It doesn't have anything to do with higher mathematics. It's just about whether you need resolution or not. This comes up in Stuart Little too, so it's not about being an advanced reader or anything. Adrian's writing has many terrific qualities, so throw me a bone and let me like the ending as is.

I was going to try to read it slowly and savor every word, but I had trouble putting it down. Thank you for ending the series the way you did. It was absolutely fitting. Fantastic series and definately one of my favorites.

Adrian,I left my review on Amazon Uk and would gladly repeat it on a amazon US.Your wit,wisdom,literary knowledge as a "Rennaisance man " is sorely needed in a gasping ,covetous egocentric world.Best Alan

Make your own home based business without any work, Just Invest some Money into your Business and Make Perfect Life time Earnings with this Business.Invest as low as 1$ and Get 2.5% Daily profit for 90 Days, Join NowHotFxEarnings.com

May I suggest that this would be a fine time to catch up on The Cold Cold Ground and I Hear the Sirens in the Street, if one has not read them? ================================= Detectives Beyond Borders"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com

No doubt you are driving a truck in Paraburdoo now and will never read this but I've relented and posted a 5-star review. I hope it's not counter-productive. I was prompted, of all things, by seeing Jonathan Creek on TV tonight.

It was probably simpler in the old days when you'd write a book and you wouldnt have to have a blog or twitter or read reviews or anything, it would just go out there and you could forget about it and get on with your life. Fire and forget as they used to say of the first heat seeking missiles.

But then again, the world has always been going to pot hasnt it? Cicero was complaining about "the kids today..." in the first century BC...

Have posted my review on Goodreads and Amazon.co.uk - on the paperback page (I'm the first here) and the kindle page too. I can't get posted on the Amazon.com site. As far as I can see, you have only had that one really negative comment, so don't be too downhearted.

"I fancy the natural gas rigs. 3 weeks on 1 week off for 6 months a year. 150K"It's generally equal time on/off Adrian. I'm surprised more books haven't been written by offshore workers. I know some have.

"Pema Chodron knows that happiness is an illusion"Levi Stubbs knew that too Seana. Or H-D-H I guess.

Actually, I don't know if Pema Chodron does actually think happiness is an illusion, come to think of it. I haven't read more than a bit of her stuff while standing around the cash register at the bookstore. I think I have the general idea though, just from living in Santa Cruz. Well, it's a non-Buddhist's idea of Buddhism, so it's probably wrong.

I don't know if authors got to just forget about it in the old days. I read a bio of Dickens last year, and by all accounts he was a hustler.

Hey now what's this, from fantasticfiction.co.uk (other than another Tom Waits title):

Sean Duffy1. The Cold, Cold Ground (2012)2. I Hear the Sirens in the Street (2013)3. In the Morning I'll be Gone (2014)4. Sixteen Shells from a Thirty Ought Six (2015) ============================="Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home" Detectives Beyond Bordershttp://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com

Thats what I gave the working title of the 4 chapters 1 wrote as a teaser for Serpents Tail, but I definitely wouldnt use that title as a possible Duffy 4. Way too long and I have a thing against books that begin with numbers.

If I do write a Duffy 4 and I do stick with the Tom Waits motif there is fortunately an embarrassment of riches.

But Good Reads and FF are wrong - there definitely will not be a book called 16 Shells From A Thirty Ought Six. At least not one written by me.

In a marathon session I listened to Cold Cold Ground again while playing GTA V on mute. I'm trying to figure out why I don't like Duffy despite loving him if that makes sense. I think it boils down to the fact that as another character pointed out Duffy isn't motivated by justice but rather revenge. I haven't gotten to the third novel yet, I'm listening to Sirens again, but I hope the fact that Shawn on an Island doesn't mean we won't see his co-workers each of whom is entertaining in his own right.

Don't get me wrong, because I have nothing against Buddhists, but their goals are a bit high-minded for the likes of me. I don't think people are actually like that. Non-attachment is for when we wake up from the simulation and realize none of it was real. Although it probably won't be us, but whoever we are the avatars for. And believe me, those players have a lot to answer for.

Its a pretty unpleasant simulation. But then if they're running millions of simulations, simulating trillions of consciousnesses most of those are probably going to be horrible and the simulators are bound to be utterly indifferent to our well being.

I think I've mentioned this before but I've always thought that there's a fundamental philosophical contradiction in Chodron et al's viewpoint. If the central idea is accepting the now in all its ugly manifestations then why meditate? You meditate to improve your ability to live in the now, right? But that then implies that you're doing something now for a future benefit which is the opposite of everything she believes.

Ach Adrian - don t be giving up on it now. I m in early stages of writing a book - like probably a lot of people on this blog. I ve taken a lot of advice from your comments here - especially about creating your own mythology. If it ever gets published, it ll be set back home. Hard boiled does nt need to be in London or New York.

Plus, I ve been waiting for your review of the new Springsteen album. I was nt a reader of the blog when you put your last post rating all his albums up. No doubt, I d have a few issues to pick you up on!

I ve also put a few new reviews on Amazon - still have nt got around to the new book yet, but I will.

I also read a couple of articles in the guardian last week on the publishing world. One was Anne Rice commenting upon fake reviews on Amazon, something you ve raspised before. Also, one on the complete collapse of revenue for authors given the perfect storm of the recession, closing book shops and Amazon. Seems no one is making money on it.

Plus who in the fuck is Pema Chodron? (Liked the Levi Stubbs link, but was nt that line in What Becomes of the Broken Hearted by Jimmy Ruffin?

Anne Rice is right. If she cant make any money out of publishing then the rest of us are well and truly fucked.

I'm reading the biography of William Burroughs at the moment and they're at the bit in the book where his first book Junkie is published. Its considered a failure because the print run is only - get this - 150,000 copies.

Take your point about William Burroughs. But he was a hard drug user who shot his wife in the head, so I m guessing book sales were nt pressing concerns to him a lot of the time.

Anne Rice's article was about the Amazon reviews - the other article was about a Booker nominee (sorry can t remember who it was) who has been writing all his life and says he has nothing to show for it. Have seen similar articles in various places over past while - seems writing is now a supplementary occupation, as opposed to an end in itself.

But then, should nt sales be a secondary point? You get great reviews - surely better than knocking out a Fifty Shades or Da Vinci Code?

Burroughs is about the only beat writer I d want to read. Maybe I m getting older, but I no longer see them all as trailblazers rebelling against the man, but a bunch of selfish fuck-ups who burned a lot of people round them. Think the best riposte to all that hipsterish rubbish is run, rabbitt, run by Updike.

Good use of the word geamhomania - but really why else would you write? Otherwise, you wind up knocking jack reacher novels out once a year.

Talking of bono, I watched a great doc last night on musicale shoals, and he was all over it. Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Percy Sledge.... And Bono talking shit all over it. Still, it is worth checking out.

Another thing that annoyed me about the beats was thy all wanted to be black (Norman Mailer talked a lot of shit in this direction as well). Because black people, you know, lived REAL lives outside the system. And broke the law. And took drugs.

Liam, I see Adrian has given you a link on Pema, but from my perspective she is the patron saint of a certain segment of Santa Cruz life, or one of them anyway, which is why I know both so much and so little about her. I really have nothing against her, what's not to like?, but an example of her cult in my city is that when I worked in the bookstore, a little shambala edition of one of her many books came out, and though it was tiny, it was still ten bucks, but if you kept it right there by the cash register, you could sell maybe four or five of them an hour when the store was hopping. It isn't that she herself is inauthentic, it's just something about what it says about our community that I find a bit ironic.

Adrian, in her and the other Buddhists defense, I suppose the idea of meditation is just experience your experience more fully. With more awareness. Unfortunately for me, I don't always want to do that.

Oh, and Kerouac would be another saint here. I think I was probably too old when I read him. And then, I didn't think he and Cassady were awfully good to women.

I don't suppose the Santa Cruzeros mention that Kerouac was a rabid Nixon supporter when he died any more than they mention that William S. Burroughs was heir to a multimillion-dollar industrial fortune.

I'm not sure most of them get past On the Road, Peter. It is mainly fuel for them to buy vans and take off across the country in one. Which isn't a bad thing, I guess. It's a young guy's and sometimes a young girl's thing mainly. Most of the one's I've known well have turned out fine, but I also suspect that a lot of the homeless youth who have ended up here have been directly or indirectly inspired by it.

Oh, I was Kerouacy when I was a kid. to the point where, when the staff at my first, small newspaper in Massachusetts handicapped the week's pro football games, each of us under an alias, mine was Sal Paradise.

I read most of the Kerouac I could get my hands on when I was in my late teens.

A few years ago I happened to flip through a memoir by one of the big neocons, maybe Norman Podhoretz, at a chapter where he relates his acquaintance with some of the Beat writers. He wrote that Kerouac was a gentleman but a crappy writer and than Ginsberg was talented but a jerk.

I still think I'll read Big Sur at some point. Kerouac seemed okay, just too much in Cassady's thrall. Of course, the end of his life is a sort of cautionary tale, but it's not the kind that dissuades people much.

I believe I've said here before that my sister had the honor of Ginsberg being a jerk to her for no discernible reason.

"I knew Kerouac only at the end of his life, which is to say there was no way for me to know him at all, since he had become a pinwheel. He had settled briefly on Cape Cod, and a mutual friend, the writer Robert Boles, brought him over to my house one night. I doubt that Kerouac knew anything about me or my work, or even where he was. He was crazy. He called Boles, who is black, "a blue-gummed nigger." He said that Jews were the real Nazis, and that Allen Ginsberg had been told by the Communists to befriend Kerouac, in order that they might gain control of American young people, whose leader he was.

"This was pathetic. There were clearly thunderstorms in the head of this once charming and just and intelligent man. He wished to play poker, so I dealt some cards. There were four hands, I think—one for Boles, one for Kerouac, one for Jane [Kerouac’s wife], one for me. Kerouac picked up the remainder of the deck, and he threw it across the kitchen.

I think probably we shouldn't take too much stock in what people do after they lose their minds, for whatever reason. It's when they have full possession of them that we can find them culpable. Not that it's always easy to discern just when that happens.

@ SeanaI recommend Off the Road by Cassidy's wife, Carolyn, if you want a true picture of the Beat Generation.As for meditation, from my brief flirtation with Buddhism, I think the idea is to empty the mind of the bad stuff and concentrate on the pure and noble -a lot easier said than done, of course!

Liam is right about all authors struggling to sell their books, Anne Rice is not the only one - Fay Weldon and Penelope Fitzgerald have been quoted in recent weeks.Another factor is the decline of the public library system, at least here in the UK. When I worked in bibliographical services for Derbyshire County Libraries, we would have ordered at least 40 copies of every one of your titles, Adrian, as crime/thriller is the most popular genre in lending libraries. However, I did manage to get In the Morning in paperback from my local branch library last week, so not all is lost yet!

I tried not to, but I raced through In the Morning like a greedy dog with a new Frisbee. Please tell us this isn't the last of Duffy. The trouble with the Troubles Trilogy is that you can't put the books down and they're over too soon. The humor of the characters is so quick and so true, it catches you off guard. It's rare to read a novel that makes you laugh out loud, especially a good mystery. Thank you for that.

To be honest I much prefer to write standalones rather than series books but I do have a lot of fun with this character and I do have what I think is a pretty good idea for a possible Duffy #4. That ghost book "16 Shells" on Good Reads is definitely NOT Duffy #4 though. And the next book wont be a Duffy book either...

I just reviewed the first book on Audible. Over the past week listed to all three novels in order, the first two for a third and second time and the final novel for a virgin listen. .

My only complaint about the third novel and this is minor, was that due to the fact that quite a bit of time passes during the course of the book three the first section of the book seems rather compressed while the remaining two thirds have a very decompressed vibe expect for the ending which is compressed. I would have like Shawn to have revisited certain characters once the climax played out. I think this series would have worked better as series of our novels. I would mention what I loved about the book but that would take quite a bit more space and I need to organize my thoughts on that when I review it on Audible.

Fantastic story; so well-written. I am sorry to seen the Trilogy end - does it have to? Sean Duffy has many more stories to tell. In addition to being engrossing, these books have been an enormous source of information and understanding of the Troubles. I was in Northern Ireland last year; now I understand it so much better. I'm promoting your books here with my U.S. friends.

I recommend you to lots of friends and a few have read your books. The latest one read "Dead I Well May Be" first and commented to me, "that was one of the best debut novels I have ever read. Looking forward to reading more of his stuff."

I had an idea for a 4th book which I thought was pretty good, but now I'm so sure. I felt positive that this one wd get reviewed in the NYT and maybe finally be my breakthrough book but that isnt going to happen. So maybe its time to pack it in, or write under a pseudonym.

Thank you for that. Word of mouth is the only way I'll ever get anywhere in North America. I've never had a book launch, a book tour or any advertising. Publisher support has been minimal, so word of mouth is the only way I seem to get any traction.

It's hard to understand why your publisher is not promoting and supporting you here in the U.S. Time for a letter to the publisher from me....and I will do it. Fellow fans, let's write! Meanwhile, I plan to read the rest of Adrian's books. And I am still promoting for more of Sean Duffy.

Their approach has been somewhat curious I must say. They've told me that they have no money for promotion which I believe. But still Book 1 came out when I was living in Seattle and there was no book launch, no readings, no interviews in any American media - all very weird I thought at the time, coming off a host of amazing British and American reviews.

I've always thought that you have to spend money to make money. A little PR might pay huge dividends for all of us...

twitter

More about me

I was born and grew up in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. After studying philosophy at Oxford University I emigrated to New York City where I lived in Harlem for seven years working in bars, bookstores, building sites and finally the basement stacks of the Columbia University Medical School Library in Washington Heights.

In 2000 I moved to Denver, Colorado where I taught high school English and started writing fiction in earnest. My first full length novel Dead I Well May Be was shortlisted for the 2004 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was picked by Booklist as one of the 10 best crime novels of the year.

In mid 2008 I moved to St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia with my wife and kids. My last book In The Morning I'll Be Gone won the 2014 Ned Kelly Award.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

All Hail McKinty!

"If Raymond Chandler had grown up in Northern Ireland he would have written The Cold Cold Ground."

---The Times

"Hardboiled charm, evocative dialogue, an acute sense of place and a sardonic sense of humour make McKinty one to watch."

---The Guardian

"A literary thriller that is as concerned with exploring the poisonously claustrophobic demi-monde of Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and the self-sabotaging contradictions of its place and time, as it is with providing the genre’s conventional thrills and spills. The result is a masterpiece of Troubles crime fiction: had David Peace, Eoin McNamee and Brian Moore sat down to brew up the great Troubles novel, they would have been very pleased indeed to have written The Cold Cold Ground."

---The Irish Times

"McKinty is a big new talent."

---The Daily Telegraph

"McKinty is a gifted man with poetry coursing through his veins and thrilling writing dripping from his fingertips."

---The Sunday Independent

"Adrian McKinty is fast gaining a reputation as the finest of the new generation of Irish crime writers, and it's easy to see why on the evidence of The Cold Cold Ground."

---The Glasgow Herald

"McKinty is a storyteller with the kind of style and panache that blur the line between genre and mainstream."

---Kirkus Reviews

"McKinty's literate expertly crafted crime novel confirms his place as one of his generation's leading talents."

---Publishers Weekly

"McKinty crackles with raw talent. His dialogue is superb, his characters rich and his plotting tight and seemless. He writes with a wonderful and wonderfully humorous flair for language raising his work above most crime genre offerings and bumping it right up against literature."

---The San Francisco Chronicle

"McKinty keeps getting better. He melds the snap and crackle of the old Mickey Spillane tales with the literary skills of Raymond Chandler and sets it all down in his own artful way."

---The Rocky Mountain News

"The first of McKinty's Forsythe novels, "Dead I Well May Be," was intense, focused and entirely brilliant. This one is looser-limbed, funnier...so, I imagine, is the middle book, "The Dead Yard," which I haven't read but which Publishers Weekly included on its list of the 12 best novels of 2006, along with works by Peter Abrahams, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy and George Pelecanos."

---The Washington Post

"McKinty, who grew up in Northern Ireland, has an ear for language and a taste for violence, and he serves up a terrifically gory, swiftly paced thriller."

---The Miami Herald

"There's nothing like an Irish tough guy. And we're not talking about Gentleman Gerry Cooney here. No, we mean the new breed of bare-knuckle Irish writers like Adrian McKinty, Ken Bruen and John Connolly who are bringing fresh life to the crime fiction genre."

---The Philadelphia Inquirer

"McKinty's writing is dark and witty with gritty realism, spot on dialogue, and fascinating characters."

---The Chicago Sun-Times

"If you like your noir staples such as beautiful women, betrayal, murder, mixed with a heavy dose of blood, crunched bones, body parts flying around served up with some throwaway humour, you need look no further, McKinty delivers all of this with the added bonus that the writing is pitch perfect."

---The Barcelona Review

"I really enjoyed [Dead I Well May Be’s] combination of toughness and a striking literary style. Both those things are evident in Hidden River. McKinty is going places."

---The Observer

"This is a terrific read. McKinty gives us a strong non stop story with attractive characters and fine writing."

---The Morning Star

"[McKinty] draws us close and relates a fantastic tale of murder and revenge in low, wry tones, as if from the next barstool...he drops out of conversational mode to throw in a few breathtaking fever-dream sequences for flavor. And then he springs an ending so right and satisfying it leaves us numb with delight and ready to pop for another round. Start the cliche machine: This is a profoundly satisfying book from a major new talent and one of the best crime fiction debuts of the year."

---Booklist

"The story is soaked in the holy trinity of the noir thriller: betrayal, money and murder, but seen through with a panache and political awareness that give McKinty a keen edge over his rivals."

---The Big Issue

"A darkly humorous cross between a hard-boiled mystery and a Beat novel."

---The St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"A roller coaster of highs and lows, light humour and dark deeds, the powerful undercurrent of McKinty's talent will swiftly drag you away. Let's hope the author does not slow down anytime soon."

---The Irish Examiner

"A virtual carnival of slaughter."

---The Wall Street Journal

"McKinty has once again harnassed the power of poetry, violence, lust and revenge to forge a sequel to his acclaimed Dead I Well May Be."

"McKinty writes with the soul of a poet; his prose dances off the pages with Old World grace and haunting intensity. It's crime fiction on the level of Michael Connolly with the conviction of James Hall."

---The Jackson Clarion-Ledger

"The Bloomsday Dead is the explosive final installment in a trilogy of kinetic thrillers."

---The New York Times

"Adrian McKinty has garnered nothing but praise for his first two books. The third in the trilogy The Bloomsday Dead should leave no doubt that he is a true star. Fast moving and highly engaging this is a great book. McKinty just gets better and better."

---CrimeSpree

"Until The Dead Yard's relentless, poignant ending you'll turn these pages as quickly as you can."

---The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"McKinty's Dead Trilogy has been praised by critics, who call it "intense," "masterful" and "loaded with action." If your reading pleasure leans toward thrillers offering suspense, close calls, wry wit, sharp dialogue, local color and sudden mayhem, you wont do better."

What's Next For Me?

A couple more books, a few birthdays, some shuffleboard then a period spent in the digestive tract of earthworms, followed by molecular breakdown, the sun boiling into space, the heat death of the universe, atomic decay, perpetual darkness, a trillion years of nothingness and then, if we're lucky, brane collapse, a new singularity and a new Big Bang.